Curtis Opera's "Idomeneo'

Mozart on the cusp of greatness

Idomeneo isn't Mozart's greatest musical creation, but it's the opera he produced just before the ultimate flowering of his talent.

Tom Purdom

May 09, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read

Opera Company's "Tosca'

If it has melody, who needs logic?

The Opera Company of Philadelphia's Tosca is well sung and for the most part well mounted. If you don't look too closely at plot or character, the gorgeous arias will work their usual magic.

Robert Zaller

May 04, 2011 · Articles · 5 minute read

New works by Maneval, Levinson and DuBois

Three new composers and a thousand crickets

Three new works by Philadelphia composers added depth and zest to concerts that placed them shoulder-to-shoulder with music that has survived decades of scrutiny.

Tom Purdom

May 03, 2011 · Articles · 3 minute read

Philadelphia Orchestra's Stravinsky concert

Stravinsky confronts the gods

Charles Dutoit reprised two strikingly paired and vividly contrasting Stravinsky masterpieces, in a program both intellectually and musically satisfying. Meanwhile, the Orchestra lost a key performer in clarinetist Ricardo Morales.

Robert Zaller

Apr 30, 2011 · Articles · 8 minute read

In search of a forgotten composer

The world forgot, but I remembered

Why on earth is Alexander Gretchaninoff buried in central New Jersey? Why on earth am I searching for his grave? In some strange way, this obscure and forgotten Russian composer speaks to my own struggle to compose.

Kile Smith

Apr 26, 2011 · Articles · 5 minute read

Network For New Music: Debussy meets Japan

East meets West (again) and sound meets sight

Network for New Music contributed to the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts with a program that mingled music and visuals, Eastern and Western musical traditions, and novel instrumental combinations.

Tom Purdom

Apr 26, 2011 · Articles · 3 minute read

Dolce Suono's French evening

Beyond nostalgia

Dolce Suono probed the music that underlies the French legend celebrated in the Philadelphia International Festival for the Arts. It also inadvertently provided a new slant on a Debussy sonata.

Tom Purdom

Apr 26, 2011 · Articles · 3 minute read

French songs at Academy of Vocal Arts

We'll always have Paris

To recapture the spirit of French song in the age of Picasso, the Academy of Vocal Arts utilized paintings, film, live animals and genuinely idiomatic singers. One question: Why doesn't the AVA stage more French operas?

Steve Cohen

Apr 26, 2011 · Articles · 3 minute read

Stravinsky and Shostakovich at the Perelman

Together at last

Pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn brought his fellow Russians Igor Stravinsky and Dmitri Shostakovich together for a rare conversation in a Chamber Music Society concert that also featured violinist Jennifer Frautschi and cellist Efe Baltacigil. They should speak more often, especially when given voice by musicians of this caliber.

Robert Zaller

Apr 23, 2011 · Articles · 5 minute read

Chamber Orchestra's "Histoire du Soldat'

Puppetmasters of Paris

The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia presented Philadelphia's first full-dress version of L'Histoire du Soldat in 20 years— and the first to attract a decent audience.

Tom Purdom

Apr 19, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read